Primary Care Initiative community health assessment

"Health care -- rather than sick care -- requires preventive and primary services. With more than half of New York City communities facing significant shortages of primary care physicians who serve low-income New Yorkers, those New Yorkers disproportionately rely on emergency room services for health care. Furthermore, 32% of the primary care physicians who serve low-income New Yorkers base their practices in hospitals. Faced with the hospital closures proposed in the Berger Commission report, many New Yorkers ... will lose a major source of primary care and will face increased barriers to accessing health care. Populations served by health centers show lower rates of costly health conditions and lower rates of preventable hospitalizations when compared to those who do not live within close proximity to a health center. Uninsured people living close to a community health center are less likely to postpone or delay seeking needed care, and less likely to have visited an emergency room, compared to other uninsured persons. The City's role should be to expand the primary health care infrastructure for our residents to access preventive medicine. Currently, about 62% of New York City zip codes have an inadequate number of primary care physicians. A ratio that represents adequate access is fewer than 2000 Medicaid enrollees per 1 full time equivalent (FTE) primary care physician, but more than 40% of New York City zip codes have more than 3000 Medicaid enrollees per 1 FTE."